Sexual encounter part of Lizzi Marriott murder investigation

DOVER — Foster's has learned the murder of University of New Hampshire student Elizabeth Marriott occurred during a sexual encounter.

However, Foster's has been unable to confirm whether the sexual encounter was voluntary or involuntary.

The 19-year-old sophomore was heading to a friend's apartment on Mill Street in Dover the night she disappeared. Family members said she was planning to visit a female friend who she met while working at the Target in Greenland. Family members said the woman lived at the Mill Street apartment with her boyfriend.

The New Hampshire Attorney General's office announced Monday that Marriott was either strangled or suffocated inside the Mill Street apartment.

Dover resident Seth Mazzaglia, a 29-year-old who lived at the Mill Street building, has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Marriott's death.

Mazzaglia operated an account on the dating website OKCupid.com under the username “DarkKaiser.”

The same user name was used by a 29-year-old Dover, N.H., man on the website FetLife.com, an online meeting place for bondage and fetish enthusiasts. The profile indicates the user was interested in a “lifetime relationship, a play partner, princess by day, slut by night, a sub.”

Marriott's body has not been recovered, but police say they have "credible" information indicating the Westborough, Mass., native is deceased. They have been concentrating the search for her body off the coast of Peirce Island in Portsmouth this week.

U.S. Coast Guard and Marine Patrol boats could be seen from shore much of the day Tuesday, and officials pulled a boot out of the water at approximately 12:30 p.m., though its relation to the case is unknown.

“Today there were as many as four vessels on the water and they employed a State Police cadaver K9 as well,” Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said.

Police have also been deploying sonar equipment an underwater camera, Young said. They have yet to set an end date for the search in the Piscataqua River.

“When we met with Marine Patrol (on Monday), the primary area they were looking at, they said they had several more days before they exhausted that area,” she said.

She added authorities have also reached out to Massachusetts and Maine officials for surveillance of their shores, in case Marriott's body turns up there.

“It's almost as if we have sort of two investigations going on,” she said. “There's the recovery going on, on the water, and then Dover is leading the homicide investigation. They, too, are working tirelessly to gather as much information as they can, to make sure that the appropriate charges are brought against the appropriate person or persons.”

Young said she could not comment on additional suspects in the case, or reports that Marriott was planning to visit a female friend on the night of Tuesday, Oct. 9

“The police continue to examine evidence gathered to date," she said. "They continue to talk to numerous individuals, and we will continue, again, to make sure we have all of the information,” she said. “And if additional charges against additional people are warranted, they will be brought … We have to see where the evidence takes us.”

Young also declined to comment on confirmed reports by Foster's of Marriott's death being tied to a sexual encounter at the Mill Street apartment.

“I'm not saying if any information has come (from Mazzaglia),” she said. “What I've said is based on the rules of professional conduct, we can make no comment on any case -- if somebody has or has not provided a statement.”